Amazon’s actions to help customers, communities, and employees affected by COVID-19

A roundup of actions Amazon has taken to reduce the spread of the coronavirus while supporting those directly and indirectly impacted by COVID-19.

As a global company, we’re closely monitoring the impact of COVID-19. In addition to those who are affected by the illness, many more are indirectly dealing with changes in their work, school, and community environments. Here are some of the ways Amazon is supporting customers, communities, and employees during this difficult time.

Serving our customers

We believe our role serving customers and the community during this time is a critical one, and we want to make sure people can get the items they need, when they need them. As COVID-19 has spread, we've recently seen an increase in people shopping online. In the short term, this is having an impact on how we serve our customers. In particular, you will notice that we are currently out of stock on some popular brands and items, especially in household staples categories. You will also notice that some of our delivery promises are longer than usual. We are working around the clock with our selling partners to ensure availability on all of our products, and bring on additional capacity to deliver all of your orders.

We're also working to ensure that no one artificially raises prices on basic need products during this pandemic and have blocked or removed tens of thousands of items, in line with our long-standing policy. We actively monitor our store and remove offers that violate our policy.

Empowering our customers

In addition to serving our retail customers, we’re making sure Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers have the tools and support they need to keep their businesses and organizations moving forward safely and efficiently.
AWS is collaborating with public health organizations, government agencies, and businesses around the globe to support their efforts resulting from the ripple effect of COVID-19. This includes providing customers in the most affected regions with technical support and AWS credits that help cover costs, while enabling organizations to quickly stand up and scale their tools and infrastructure to keep businesses running, and speed COVID-19 research projects. More details to be shared in coming days.

We are supporting Amazonians and others who are working from home with AWS services, including virtual desktops in the cloud, frustration-free online meetings with video, and secure content storage and collaboration. AWS also provides services for many healthcare and life sciences companies that are working on research, diagnosis, treatment, and vaccine study to accelerate our collective understanding of COVID-19.

Caring for our employees

We continue to work closely with authorities in the UAE and worldwide to ensure that we are taking the right precautions and have implemented a series of preventative health measures for employees. In light of ongoing international COVID-19 developments, global employees who work in a role that can be done from home, are welcome to do so until at least October 2nd. Every team is different and not all jobs are conducive to working from home. Employees and partners whose work requires their physical presence in their workplace, have access to all of their usual paid and unpaid time-off benefits.

All Amazon employees diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine will receive up to two weeks of pay. This additional pay while away from work is to ensure employees have the time they need to return to good health without the worry of lost income.

We cancelled large events, and changed the majority of our job interviews to virtual interviews rather than in-person interviews, which often require travel. At the same time, we increased our cleaning of all facilities globally, including regular sanitization of all door handles, stairway handrails, elevator buttons, lockers, and touch screens.

Safeguarding our Fulfillment Network & Delivery teams

As a response to the increase in people shopping online, our operations team has increased its capacity to ensure we fulfill customer orders as quickly as possible. We do this while ensuring the highest safety and hygiene standards for our associates and partners.

We are continuing to raise awareness and educate our associates to adhere to preventive hygiene practices outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UAE’s Ministry of Health and Prevention.

In line with the company’s guidelines, all our associates are required to stay home and seek medical attention if they are feeling unwell.

We have increased the frequency and intensity of cleaning at all operations sites across the UAE.

Our vehicles and warehouse also following very rigorous hygienic standards.

Before reaching customers, employees sanitize their hands to protect themselves and also assure customers that shipments are safe and clean.

For contactless deliveries, use an electronic payment method such as a gift card, credit card or debit card.

We also continue to work with delivery service partners to ensure they are supporting their employees during this time.

Supporting Our Community

As part of Amazon’s COVID 19 relief efforts, and to mark the month of Ramadan, we are supporting food charities
including 10 Million Meals initiative in the UAE, The Saudi Food Bank, The Egyptian Food Bank and Jordanian charity Tkiyet Um Ali. You can help support by donating directly to these charities by clicking on the links below.